


Sunday

by spastasmagoria (Spastasmagoria)



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Character Death, F/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-30
Updated: 2014-06-30
Packaged: 2018-02-06 21:51:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,499
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1873761
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Spastasmagoria/pseuds/spastasmagoria
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sunday morning was going as all other Sunday mornings before it had gone; perfectly. Until IT happened. And then nothing was right again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Sunday

They’d been sitting there laughing. That was what she remembered first. Her leg had been under her, and she’d been curled up on the sofa, one leg under her as she waved the newspaper in front of her like a fan. 

He’d been in his chair, bare toes kneading into the carpet in that adorable way he did, pointing at her as his head bobbed back and forth with the force of his laughter. 

Emma had been on the carpet, trying desperately to roll over, but still looking up to see what had gotten her parents so excited. 

That’s where they’d been. That’s what they’d been doing. Having a Sunday morning in the lounge after a big breakfast, papers and books sitting around. He commented about their method of contraception obviously being faulty, and she should choose another one. She’d waved the paper in front of her face saying it hadn’t been faulty, he was just too hot for her, and one look had made her pregnant. 

Then he was pointing, saying to get that smirk off of her face before he knocked her up again because breast feeding was in no way a form of birth control. He gripped the arm of the chair with his other hand and flattened out his toes, and she knew he was going to get up and squeeze her mercilessly. That was what happened on Sundays. 

Sundays were good. Sundays they both had off. Sunday mornings were just for them. 

He leaned forward in the chair, shifting his weight. 

She saw the red dot and didn’t even have time to scream before the dot of light turned into blood. Everywhere. 

On telly, it’s always this dark red. So dark it almost looks black. Maybe for the censors. Or it’s a bright red and gushing like someone killed the Kool-Aid man. But it wasn’t really like that. Not most of the time. Not head wounds. They were dark and deep with bits of skull and hair and brain behind on the wall. The brain was red until the blood ran out of it. Then it looked like greyish-pink chewing gum. The blood would hit the wall so hard and so fast it would go in other directions, leaving outlines of stains where the edges dried slightly as the blood changed directions. 

That was how a headwound worked. Tiny spot on the forehead, giant mess in the back. The transfer of energy from that type of bullet at the distance needed to make silent a shot at that angle… well. 

The light was gone from his eyes before the scream left her mouth. 

Things had happened after that. She felt too slow, and everything felt too quick, happening around her. She picked up the baby. That part she remembered. There were people suddenly. Where had they come from? They were in her flat. She screamed for Lestrade. She didn’t like they way they walked around on her carpet. No one knew who Lestrade was, until she screamed for Sherlock. Then they suddenly remembered. They were stupid and she wouldn’t have them there. She screamed at every last one of them to leave until Sherlock came. Lestrade’s people would sort it. Sherlock’s people would sort it. And she was there. Alone in the lounge, rocking the crying baby, looking at the ghost stains on the wall, where the trails of blood used to be. 

Her mind wound backwards like a video tape. The action replayed in reverse. Every drop of blood or matter slid back up the wall, and back into his skull. His eyes lit again in slow motion, going from the absence of the human spark to far too much of it. If she didn’t watch her mouth, he’d impregnate her again with just a look… 

She was waving the paper like a fan. 

He was questioning her contraception. 

Emma was on the carpet. 

They cleaned up after breakfast. 

They ate and he fed the baby. 

The egg lept from the skillet back into its shell. 

He took the baby out of the baby chair, walked backward through the kitchen, Emma on his hip, and kissed her, then back into the bedroom. 

That’s where the day started again. That’s where she wanted it to. He came out, frazzled and confused and kissed her cheek. She grabbed his sleeve and pulled him back toward her, pecking him on the lips before she cracked the egg. That’s where the day should stay. Right there, in the kitchen. In that moment. Out of sight lines, out of firing range. Out of all the horror and despair she knew intellectually she would feel, but for now, felt nothing. He kissed her cheek. She pulled him back for an extra one on the lips. The baby bounced on his hip. He kissed her cheek. She pulled him back. Kissed him. The baby bounced. 

The eggs were safe in their shells. She hadn’t even cracked them open yet… 

The first pain of reality cracked through her grinding, echoing memories with someone’s cry of “Jesus Christ. Fucking hell.” 

Lestrade was here. 

The baby slid from her arms. It was only then she noticed the baby was screaming. Sherlock bounced her, calming her down. “Mary--” 

He didn’t have anything to say. What was there to say? 

She just shrugged, understanding that nothing was better than something. There were a lot of things she should also be saying, but there seemed to have developed an inability to turn the pictures in her mind to words. The angle through the glass. They should look at that. The roof. Not across the way. The roof behind that. That’s where the sniper was. It was a sniper. There was no way for it not to be. 

They wouldn’t find anything. Not the police. Maybe not even Sherlock. Professionals were like that. Professional. 

He kissed her cheek. She pulled him back and kissed him again. Emma kicked her legs out, bouncing herself in his arms. That had been the last time everything in her life had been ok. That last fleeting moment. The last time she touched him… 

She wanted to tell him to check the body. Look at the glass. Do something. But they both knew there was nothing to see here. They both knew where the bullet had come from. Sherlock just stood there, rocking someone else’s child while Lestrade’s team started everything over from the beginning. 

Someone tried to question her. Asked her something in words her brain couldn’t put in order. It was someone she didn’t mind. But she still couldn’t make any sense of things. Her world had been in order. It had been whole. Like that uncracked egg. And then it wasn’t. Now it was broken. The baby had blood smeared on her face. She couldn’t find a way out of her own head. And he--he was still in the chair. Slumped like he’d fallen asleep. If you ignored the mess… 

“Go outside, Mary,” Sherlock told her, in words that broke through the miasthma. She wanted to protest but words still weren’t happening. So she let herself be pulled away by that vaguely pleasant person that she didn’t mind, but she couldn’t recall a name or a face. The vaguely pleasant person had the baby, who wasn’t crying now. 

They asked her things again. Something about a blanket. Tea, water, something. The details weren’t important. The details were SO important. She’d missed a detail. Somewhere. She’d missed it. Something she should have seen or known. She kissed the rings on her left hand, wondering what she’d missed. 

Sherlock Holmes kissed her forehead, his hands gripping her shoulders. “This isn’t your fault,” he promised. “Lestrade’s going to grab a few things for you and Emma, and take you back to Baker Street.” He turned away from her. “Make sure she’s set up before you leave. Mrs. Hudson is out of town. Which is fine. I don’t need the noise. Don’t look at me like that. Grief is noisy. No, Donnovan, I don’t have a soul. No one has a soul. We’re all meat and electrical impulses. Some of us with more vague electrical activity than others.” 

Something about that made her snort. Then the laughter started, her wedding ring still to her lips. A few seconds later it was ugly sobbing she knew would come. Her face and chest felt like something would explode from it, all the emotion inside of her trying to claw free. It tore at her eyes and her brain and her throat until she couldn’t even remember the last moment her life had been good. To that thing destroying her from the inside out, she had always felt like this; grief upon sorrow upon grief, eating her alive even as it crawled free of her chest. 

His hands slid from their grip on her arms as he pulled her into a tight hug. “I know,” he whispered, his own voice catching. “I know.” 

THE END


End file.
